In China you can’t get to some Internet sites: no Facebook, no
YouTube, no Twitter. Search engines can’t find the “Falun Gong” or
“Tiananmen Square massacre”. We would never do that kind of blocking
here in the US, you say. Well, not so fast. If either House bill
SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) or Senate bill PIPA (Protect IP Act)
or something in between passes both houses of Congress and is signed
by the President, Internet censorship, unreachable websites, and
forbidden searches will be the law of this land.

The Arab Spring has been enabled by the inability of some
governments to block Internet communication. SOPA and SIPA both
require that Internet blocking tools be developed and deployed here.
Maybe we trust our own government not to misuse these (I don’t!);
but do we really want to be responsible for the proliferation of
censorship and blocked communication?

Why, you ask, would our Congresspeople want to impose censorship
anywhere? Why would they want to slow down the most vigorous parts
of the US economy?

The answer, at least, is simple. These are bills that Hollywood
wants to protect its movies from online piracy, and Hollywood makes
mega-campaign contributions and even gives Congresspeople bit parts
in its movies. There is nothing partisan about campaign
contributions.

As for
the Arab Spring,
the powers that be here don’t want that here.
Remember who propped up Mubarak all those decades.

When even Patrick Leahy pushes PIPA, something is seriously wrong
with the U.S. government.
SOPA or PIPA or something watered down that their pushers can claim
isn’t as bad will pass unless the people stand up and stop it.

Glenn Greenwald has video of attendees refusing to say who they were
or why they were there or what the party was for:

Amazingly, not a single one of the 25-30 people we tried to interview would speak to us about who they were, how they got invited, what the party’s purpose was, why they were attending, etc. One attendee said he was with an “energy company,” and the other confessed she was affiliated with a “trade association,” but that was the full extent of their willingness to describe themselves or this event. It was as though they knew they’re part of a filthy and deeply corrupt process and were ashamed of — or at least eager to conceal — their involvement in it. After just a few minutes, the private security teams demanded that we leave, and when we refused and continued to stand in front trying to interview the reticent attendees, the Denver Police forced us to move further and further away until finally we were unable to approach any more of the arriving guests.